Misuse: Golden Ending

As I see it, the definition of Golden Ending requires it to be the only "good" ending the game offers. However, examples on that page and links from other pages often use it to mean the "best" ending in games that also offer a "good" ending. I'm concerned about this Trope Decay.

The description needs work, it's using hyperbole in a way that's easily confused. Very few games with a Multiple Endings format have one and only one "good" ending. One ending can be far and above better than the others (the Golden Ending), but if all the other endings were decisively bad, then it would effectively be one actual ending, the rest being Nonstandard Game Over.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:23:29 PM by Twilightdusk

I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time. The Statue of Liberty has been stolen! But if you complete the game on anything less than hardest difficulty, all you get is a "try again on hard mode".

I also remember getting killed on the last level of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, and I haven't bothered to verify whether it was a case of Nonstandard Game Over or missing the Golden Ending.

Hmm....

Tweaked it a bit. Better?

The name doesn't help, as the word "Golden" does imply best. Plus the distinction of this trope and merely Good Ending and Best Ending (we should have those if we don't) is that there is only one in the game.

So how about renaming it to Just One Good Ending or something like that.

Bad Ending Try Again? Do Better Next Time?

^ But I thought the point was that there could be a good ending that's better than the bad endings, but the Golden Ending is heads and shoulders best ending. Instead of wanting to explore every possible ending, you end up trying your hardest to get to the Golden Ending and avoid all the others.

For example, in a Choose Your Own Adventure book I read as a child, you are an Olympic swimmer who suspects the German athletes of taking steroids. You can end up:

Getting framed for steroid use yourself— Bad Ending

Get killed by the Germans — Bad Ending

Get kidnapped and miss your event — Bad Ending

Choose to ignore the whole thing and swim your event, winning the silver medal —Good Ending

BUT the clear Golden Ending is the one where the German athlete you've befriended wins gold, but disqualifies herself for steroid use, reveals the steroid system, and seeks political asylum in the US—making you the gold medal winner.

edited 28th Oct '10 8:53:06 AM by Starry-Eyed

^ The difference between a Bad Ending and a Non-Standard Game Over is, generally speaking, that a Bad Ending follows the narrative through to completion (or at least the climax) and it's only the epilogue that differs. The Nonstandard Game Over cuts it off halfway because you screwed up.

So if you get busted for steroid abuse halfway through the prelimiaries, that's not a Bad Ending. If you won the final event but subsequently get disqualified because they discovered steroids in your drug tests, then it's a Bad Ending.

Some CYOA's don't have Nonstandard Game Overs as much as they have The Many Deaths of You. I only ever read a few of them, but I generally noticed three types:

1. If the story involves time travel, making the wrong choice forces you to loop back to an earlier plot point. (You DO have a time machine, after all....) In this case, the book is a maze with no dead-ends, only loops, and you keep looping until you figure out the correct path to take; there is only one ending.
2. You get a humdrum or mildly negative "The End" after making a wrong choice.
3. A few particular horror-themed CYOAs pumped number 2 for all it's worth, where any wrong choice results in getting a rather Anvilicious Nonstandard Game Over. You don't just get a bridge dropped on you, but the writers decided to soak it in High Octane Nightmare Fuel and set it on fire before letting it drop. (Sweet dreams!)

Alternative titles...

• Only One True Ending?

edited 28th Oct '10 9:04:34 AM by Stratadrake

PS: Noting that the original definition of the trope is that anything other than the "best" ending is a "Game Over Try Again".

Changing it to simply "one of the Multiple Endings is the best" is of questionable tropability because that's part of why Multiple Endings exist in the first place. The audience will always consider one particular outcome to be "the best".

edited 28th Oct '10 9:09:22 AM by Stratadrake

Yet the original definition just looks like a game without multiple endings.

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